I'm pretty sure that it was a new copy. Unfortunately I can't ask my dad directly, he died 4 years ago.

Meanwhile I've got a message from the ebayer. He said that he didn't try to rewind his tape after the last episode. Looks like we are in the deadlock here.

- - - Updated - - -

Quote:

Originally Posted by Malev_Emperor

For a second there, when the triangle is left alone on screen, I thought "Dark Side of the Moon" was going to start!

Hey, you are right. I didn't thought about this before. Maybe it's a kind of the "Pink Floyd" tribute from a "bored production dude"?
It may have more sense if "Pink Floyd" were an authors of this strange track in the middle. But as I know they are not. At least I don't remember this track in official discography. May it be unreleased track or something?

October 22, 2012, 01:34am

Thrashor

Don't you mean fast forward the tape and not re-wind? :hmshift:

October 22, 2012, 06:45am

evan.gibbs

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thrashor

Don't you mean fast forward the tape and not re-wind? :hmshift:

Yes, I mean fast forward.
Sorry for disinformation.

October 23, 2012, 06:51pm

keller

Triangle =Enter The Skeletor (kind of like enter the dragon)

October 24, 2012, 04:47am

Neo

Weird video.. :hmshift: I like it though but it's obviously fake imo..

EDIT:
My girlfriend thinks it might be an edit made by the Japanese.. They do seem more extreme with their (Anime) cartoons so she might be right..

October 28, 2012, 06:42pm

JTalpur

My guess is that this might be some sort of promo video to help sell the series into the Japanese market; remember some of the early MOTU figures were actually sold in Japan through Takara (the Transformers' co-designer toy company).

As far as I know, those figures were sold on the original U.S. cards, with just a sticker from Takara on the back of them essentially indicating that Takara were the Japanese licensee.

However, there were some examples of more elaborate Japanese-exclusive boxed packaging on eBay a little while back. I'm not sure the figures actually ended up being sold in Japan in those unique boxes (and seemingly only from Mattel, as Takara's name did not appear on them), but it does all point to the notion that there might have been serious consideration at launching the toys and cartoon in Japan following its success in the rest of the world.

With regard this "trailer" itself, it would make sense to show some of the more "exciting" scenes of conflict between the two key characters taken from early episodes, even if using that clip of Faker is very misleading! The original music that briefly appears also wouldn't have been out of place in an 80s' anime opening!

Appropriately enough, this also fits in with a lot of Japanese advertising that often purposefully misrepresents what is being advertised; witness any number of Japanese toy commercials that show the toys doing things the actual ones in the stores do not (spitting fire, etc.)

How did it end up on the tape? Possibly an oversight from Filmation with regard what materials they made available for duplication?

Still, I've got nothing on the creepy triangle; maybe they were going to superimpose the Japanese logo? :)

October 28, 2012, 08:58pm

Adam_Prince of Eternia

In Japan, a triangle or sankaku, is a mark used to indicate that something is "in progress."

November 3, 2012, 03:08pm

Dr_SLUMP

Quote:

Originally Posted by rankinman

Ok............................ Now am I gonna have to wait for a wet Skeletor to come out of my computer and kill me in a week?

HAHAHAHA!! I seriously laughed...

Anyway, all I can say is that the Japanese subtitles are correct, so there's nothing to find out from what is written. The creepy music in the middle of the video is... oh well, a bit off-198x. More like contemporary experimental rock or something.

Anyone who watches this has 7 days to pass it on before it's too late! :tblol:

November 12, 2012, 10:25am

dark knight

too much inconsistency is that, if you go to the first fight between he-man and skeletor, he-man pushes skeletor and and he falls but he-man is still stand, and the next second you see skeletor standing and he-man too like he was in the floor, seems a montage of several chapters and as they say when he-man falls is faker, but anyway is a nice one

November 12, 2012, 01:56pm

masterenglish

I'm really tempted to buy a vcr and all the old tapes just to see if there are other crazy shorts like this. It's very cool to me because It's semi official material. I wonder if they will work this video into the bios somehow :hmlol:

November 12, 2012, 05:31pm

evan.gibbs

1 Attachment(s)

Hey guys! I don't know why I didn't try this before, but I made a search with keywords 'skeletor', 'Japan' and 'triangle', and look what I found in Google-pictures:

It looks like a screen shot of my VHS-rip, but there are some subtitles in Japanese. Does anybody know what they mean?

December 4, 2012, 11:02pm

Sarzac

I'm really intrigued about this myself so I purchased one of the copies of this volume off of Amazon. I'll post back here after I have a chance to look at it!

December 5, 2012, 12:10pm

Dr_SLUMP

It says God Zombie...

December 7, 2012, 11:56pm

uaxuctum

Don't know if this spliced-together "final battle" clip actually came out of Filmation, but I'm sure loving that weird creepy-grandiose music in the middle. :hmlol: And that triangle is intriguing. :hmconf:

December 10, 2012, 03:46pm

JTalpur

Quote:

Originally Posted by evan.gibbs

Hey guys! I don't know why I didn't try this before, but I made a search with keywords 'skeletor', 'Japan' and 'triangle', and look what I found in Google-pictures:

That's weird, because I just did the same in English and Japanese and found nothing, other than a link to this thread. Not to throw too much doubt on this, but what website was this image originally on?

December 10, 2012, 04:37pm

Croaker

Quote:

Originally Posted by JTalpur

That's weird, because I just did the same in English and Japanese and found nothing, other than a link to this thread. Not to throw too much doubt on this, but what website was this image originally on?

As far as I can google, that image only shows up on this page. So same results.
Adds to suspicion.

December 10, 2012, 04:56pm

Arkangel

Japanese always get extra stuff on their media :)

@Malev_Emperor

so did i!

December 16, 2012, 01:42pm

Sarzac

So the VHS copy of “Betrayal of Stratos” that I ordered came in yesterday and I had a chance to view it. “The Death of He-Man” clip does not appear on my tape so I am completely unsure of how it got on Evan’s tape.

Here is some background behind my experiment. There were three used copies and one new copy on Amazon. Two of the used copies were priced at around $15-$17 and another (which is still there) for a bit over $22,000. The new copy is priced at $70. I purchased one of the cheaper used copies only to get an e-mail from the seller a few days later explaining that he did not have the tape and its listing was a mistake. So I purchased the other reasonably priced used copy. It arrived yesterday.

What plays after the last episode on the tape (“The Arena”) is a bit of black space with no sound immediately followed by a white screen with a high pitch audio sound. This white screen plays for about two and a half minutes. It is then followed by nothing for a few more minutes before the tape comes to its end.

I’ve made a Youtube video of what happens from the ending of “The Arena” to the end of the tape. I shot this with my cell phone so that you could see the tape and what happens on the screen when I put it in the VCR. A link to the video appears below.

This makes “The Death of He-Man” that appears on Evan’s tape much more mysterious because it isn’t on my tape. I have no explanation for it after viewing the “Betrayal of Stratos” volume. It would be interesting to hear if anyone else could offer some insight about this particular video at this point.

There were three used copies and one new copy on Amazon. Two of the used copies were priced at around $15-$17 and another (which is still there) for a bit over $22,000 (). The new copy is priced at $70.

Wait... what?! :hmeek: Someone's asking $22,309.55 for a ****ing old used VHS that was mass-market produced, is still available shiny and new for $70, and whose content has been remastered and re-released on DVD half a dozen times? I wonder what kind of extraterrestrial, massively-hallucinogenic weed that guy's smoking. :hmroll: Sheesh, just checked and that guy is also asking $966 for a used cheap (paperback) copy of a book published in 2000 (Refuge from the Reich: American Airmen and Switzerland During World War II) that is easily available in deluxe (hardcover) edition for $17. Some people must be living on a different planet or dimension.

December 17, 2012, 02:21am

stormtripper

Quote:

Originally Posted by uaxuctum

Wait... what?! :hmeek: Someone's asking $22,309.55 for a ****ing old used VHS that was mass-market produced, is still available shiny and new for $70, and whose content has been remastered and re-released on DVD half a dozen times? I wonder what kind of extraterrestrial, massively-hallucinogenic weed that guy's smoking. :hmroll: Sheesh, just checked and that guy is also asking $966 for a used cheap (paperback) copy of a book published in 2000 (Refuge from the Reich: American Airmen and Switzerland During World War II) that is easily available in deluxe (hardcover) edition for $17. Some people must be living on a different planet or dimension.

extraterrestrial, massively-hallucinogenic weed (where do I get this?)

December 22, 2012, 07:51am

GodsAgainstZombies

Several months ago a mysterious video appeared on the Internet – it was a fragment of an unknown episode of cult cartoon of 1980’s called “Masters of the Universe”. The heroes of this story are He-man, brawny body-builder wearing red fur boxers and his №1 enemy Skeletor – they meet each other in violent fight while epic soundtrack is playing. And in the end He-man dies what never happened in any other 130 episodes of the cartoon.

It’s time to show our cards. The authors of the video are we – Gods Against Zombies.

Since we have always been big fans of He-man adventures, at some moment we asked ourselves a question: what will the soundtrack be like for this story? The result is a 1.5 minutes video, which is edited the way that Skeletor gains long-awaited historic victory over He-man and it looks like a fragment from non-existing episode. In order to look more convincing we rewrited the video to the old VHS, then again into digital format and included Japanese subtitles as if this video was created to be shown in the country of the rising sun. We decided not to mention the name of the band, we only left a sign by the end of the video – white triangle on black background.

We apologize to all 8 thousand internet-users who believed our video – sorry guys, but that was a lot of fun.